Neighborhoods don’t have to become unrecognizable.
Pattern Zones makes delivering high-quality housing fast, predictable, and easy.
Raising the Standard
High quality housing
A pattern zone is a new technology that pairs pre-approved buildings with simple development regulations, making it easy and fast to get a permit to build high-quality housing. Cities and towns can use a pattern zone to address their housing goals by expediting desired development and making it more predictable for all.
Simplifying Development
Fast and predictable
When Claremore, Oklahoma implemented a pattern zone they started issuing infill permits in less than five days – some in less than 48 hours! The days of confusing public hearings and zoning language can be a thing of the past. Anyone can look up exactly what the program allows to happen on any property. With a pattern zone, what you see is what you get.
Lasting Impact
Elevating design
Cities and towns know changing the rules isn’t enough. Builders and developers won’t change what they are doing unless it’s convenient. A pattern zone makes it easy for amateurs and developers who are not design-focused to do something great by default, resulting in high-quality housing, even in infill settings.
Other Features
Easy to Adopt
Decision makers and concerned citizens get to see the actual buildings entitled by the program. There’s no confusion about what new zoning and land use language will mean for neighborhoods.
Convenient Administration
In today’s world, people expect accessibility from companies and governments. The information about a pattern zone program lives online and comes with management tools. No one has to hunt through a network drive or three-ring binder anymore.
Swappable Buildings
It’s important to get the buildings right when they are being pre-approved, but what happens when consumer preferences change or a building is built so much that it becomes repetitive? In a pattern zone, cities and towns can swap buildings in and out of the program every year.
Variety Baked In
Pre-approved building portfolios are created through a facilitated process of shortlisting and selecting. Teams work together to identify important themes and the best building types. Buildings are linked together in bundles to provide a variety of choices right from the start.
Lower Costs
The use of the plans comes at a reduced price for builders (often free!) and the permits are much faster to get. That translates into direct savings on every building permitted through the program.
Parcel-by-Parcel
Help guide development of key parcels to their highest and best use. Cities and towns can use a pattern zone to incentivize the market to make corridors and corners special again.
Opt-in for Builders
There’s no mandate with a pattern zone. That means more stakeholders can support adoption and the jurisdiction has flexibility to apply best practices that aren’t appropriate for more general deployment.